Muslim Awareness Week: panel on hate crimes, mental health

A panel on hate crimes and conference on mental health took place Tuesday to provide Montrealers with tools to creating a more peaceful community.

It was part of the sixth edition of Muslim Awareness Week in partnership with the National Institute of Scientific Research.

“It’s extremely important because almost nobody knows or remembers all the debate about the impact have been initiated in Canada,” discrimination and hate crime researcher and professor, Denise Helly, said.

Panelists for the morning’s hate crime panel included a member from the Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence and the SPVM’s hate incidents and crimes unit.

Unlike the United States, a hate crime in Canada is one that intimidates or harms a person or group of people, and does not require a violent incident to have happened first. Since the start of the Isreal-Hamas war on Oct. 7, 2023, 40 cases of hate crimes or incidents targeting the Arabic-Muslim community were reported to Montreal police (as of Jan. 23).

Salam El-Mousawi, co-founder of Muslim Awareness Week said, “the SPVM hate crime unit is collaborating with us and the professors, psychiatrists at McGill University and other universities to analyze the situation and how the situation in the Middle East is affecting everybody.”

A conference on mental health featuring psychiatrists and psychiatry professors was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. Top of mind is encouraging Montrealers on the whole to show an interest in combatting the issue, El-Mousawi explained, saying “Montrealers can have more mixing and interaction with Muslims, or Quebecquers of Muslim faith, by joining them in their events and activities to get to know them closely.

“It’s like the doctor, if you know the symptoms and you understand why you have the symptoms, you can give a better solution or a better cure,” he said.